A new Creole restaurant has opened on Magazine Street; a Louisiana seafood restaurant is slated to open just down the street this spring; a bakery and coffee shop has opened on Prytania Street; and Cafe Reconcile on O.C. Haley Boulevard plans to reopen after renovations this month.Continue reading »

Whereever we go this week, we hear New Orleanians complain about their own “fiscal cliff,” increased property tax bills. What’s wrong with Erroll Williams, they say? Doesn’t he know we like our properties to be under-assessed? No one likes their taxes to go up. And paying the new bills might cause some of us to eat out a few less times or cut down on our Mardi Gras expenses. But all in all, life in New Orleans is pretty darn good.Continue reading »

I’ve been spending a little time lately at job interviews – not that I’m unhappy in my current position (decent hours and health insurance count for a lot. I also really like the folks I’m working with). But I figure it’s always a good idea to keep up with what’s going on in the city’s food and restaurant industry. One of the best ways is to talk to would-be owners and managers to find out who’s planning to do what. While I’m always interested in opportunity and in getting back to running my own shop one day, it’s also good mental exercise.Continue reading »

The anarchist approach to spirituality, Tolstoy, poster design, prison policy, hurricane response and numerous other topics will be discussed at the Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Center on O.C. Haley Boulevard this weekend as the North American Anarchist Studies Network holds its fourth annual conference in New Orleans.Continue reading »

Firefighters extinguish a few remaining hot spots at the Sullivan Stained Glass Studio on Magazine Street after a fire burned the front of the building Thursday afternoon. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)

A stained-glass studio on Magazine Street caught fire Thursday afternoon while its owner was renovating the front of it, but firefighters were able to extinguish the blaze quickly enough to prevent any serious structural damage. Continue reading »

A brawl involving a dozen people or more on New Year’s morning outside two controversial Uptown bars woke up neighbors around Wisner Park and ended with the arrest of a former Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s deputy on charges of stabbing one of the other combatants. Continue reading »

Locations of the New Year’s Eve robbery on Jefferson and New Year’s Day fight on Annunciation. (map via NOPD)

In a rash of New Year’s violence around Uptown New Orleans, a man was robbed at gunpoint on Jefferson Avenue, a Gert Town man was beaten in his home by men demanding money, another man was stabbed several times in a fight on Annunciation Street and a Milan resident was shot on his porch, according to initial police reports.Continue reading »

At last we are full fledged forced into another calender year, and per the usual all have weighed in on just how ultra amazing or super crappy 2012 was. And all I can think about is: the poor year.

Each year, every year, so put upon with anticipation, hope, woe, scorn, and glee. Another year’s worth of diurnal hygienic tasks from tooth brushing to toenail clipping to bowel movements, the most mundane of sun up to sun down activities to the most looked upon. Elections, premieres, births, deaths, graduations, whatever milestone life events you may imagine. And then all the emotion attached to each of these moments. The leaky tires, broken engagements, unfavorable rulings, and flat face failings that fall short the idyllic, escaping the sublime, and harshly clinging to a set of 365 days.Continue reading »

A costumed member of the Phunny Phorty Phellows prepares for his ride in 2012. (UptownMessenger.com file photo by Sabree Hill)

The Phunny Phorty Phellows will gather at the Willow Street streetcar barn at 6:30 p.m. Sunday and depart at 7 p.m down Carrollton and St. Charles Avenue and back again, unimpeded by the crosstie replacement project at the lower end of the streetcar line, officials are saying this week. Continue reading »

The Alliance Française de La Nouvelle-Orléans has released its winter schedule of French classes, featuring 11-week sessions at every proficiency level, an array of specialized classes such as reading the news in French or French in Louisiana, and for the first time several shorter trial sessions. Continue reading »

Never ones to resist the urge to milk a tragedy, politicians in favor of gun control have been feverishly scrambling to shoe-horn their agenda into the national consciousness following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Among these opportunists has been our own friendly face in Congress, Representative Cedric Richmond, who took the House floor earlier this month to point his finger at the real culprit: assault rifles.

“Every once in a while we will have an event that will shake the confidence of our country and make us take a step back and rationally look at our gun laws in this country and say: “Wait, we’ve done far too much, we’ve extended the Second Amendment too far,” Richmond said.Continue reading »

The Lady and Men Rollers will hold their 17th annual second line at noon on Sunday, leaving from Le Roux at Louisiana and Carondelet, heading down to Magazine Street, then parading up through Touro neighborhood into Central City and finishing back at Le Roux, according to the route sheet published by Red Cotton at Gambit.

Construction is proceeding at Fat Harry’s on St. Charles Avenue. (Robert Morris, UptownMessenger.com)

In this photo from early November, the antique toy-grabber game that survived the fire can be seen as workers begin demolition inside Fat Harry’s. (photo via facebook.com/FatHarrys)

After a fire gutted Fat Harry’s in the wake of Hurricane Isaac, many lifelong patrons wondered sadly what Carnival would be like without their 40-year-old parade-watching headquarters at the corner of Napoleon and St. Charles.

Now, if all goes according to plan, they won’t have to find out. Construction is on pace to have the bar reopened just a day or two before the first parade rolls, the contractor said this week. Continue reading »